Pages

In the world of capital markets, 'January Effect'
is a situation where stock prices increased significantly in the month of January.
There are several things that could explain this phenomenon, like because the
investor is usually fresher and more eager to buy stocks after a long holiday
(Christmas and New Year), the beginning of a year is almost always fulfilled
with optimism, and because companies usually pay dividends in the first half,
precisely in April – June, so investors will have taken a position in the stock
in question in advance, starting in January.

If you often travel throughout Indonesia by plane,
you must be familiar with the famous Lion
Air.. but ain’t famous in a positive sense, but famous as an airline that
sucks, where its flight schedule are often delayed. Because of its bad
reputation, when several years ago I began to travel frequently by plane, I
deliberately avoid Lion Air and prefer other airlines like Garuda Indonesia,
Air Asia, Citilink, and Sriwijaya Air. And indeed, I have never been in trouble
with those airlines, especially with Garuda which always provided excellent
services (though its tickets also not cheap).

When studying the data of economic growth for the
third quarter of 2015, I was confused by the fact that the level of national
consumption still grew 4.96%, or above the overall economic growth of 4.73%,
whereas the prices of goods clearly soaring, and it should lower the purchasing
power of people. But as far as I could observe, almost everybody is still
happy, and even the workers still dare to protest to demand higher wages. The
question is, how can it be?

Most people assume that
the pharmaceutical industry, just like other consumer industries, is resistant
to the risk of economic slowdown, so companies in this industry should have a
consistent financial performance from year to year, thus the stocks are also good
for long-term investment. Because, logically, if you get sick, you inevitably
have to drink/consume a particular drug, right? Even though the price of the
drug is probably expensive.

Last night, the general
meeting of executive directors of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) decided
that the chinese currency, Yuan (also called Renminbi), to be included as one
of the world reserve currency, effective from October 1, 2016. In the new calculation
of special drawing rights (SDR), Yuan weighs 10.9%, or greater than the weights
of Britain Pound Sterling or Japanese Yen, but still much lower than the weights
of US Dollar and Euro. You can read the explanation of SDR in this article.

The term 'koppig' comes from Dutch language which
means stubborn. It was first pinned by Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, to
Ali Sadikin, the then Governor of Jakarta, for his tough stance in building the
Capital. Ali was a controversial figure who built infrastructure in Jakarta
using the money generated from gambling business, but he never step back though
his leadership is opposed by many people. Even at that time, Ali often slap his
incompetent subordinates using his own hands, and all of the City officials
were afraid of him.